64 Damn Prompts: Harvest Moon
by LikeSynonymsForJoy
Summary: A collection of one shots centering around a variety of Harvest Moon characters and worlds. Prompts will not be used in order as they appear on the list. Back in action after a multi-year hiatus!
1. Every You, Every Me

_Chelsea and Vaughn_

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><p>He had many sides.<p>

On the barge that transported him to the various islands on which he conducted business, his mannerisms were crude and his sentences were peppered with the foulest language. These traits were the norms and expectations held by his seafaring peers. In his private quarters, he would practice spitting with gusto – in even the smallest ways, he had to hold his own with the men who worked on the sea craft year round. It was all a means to earn and keep their respect, and earn it he did. Though he was much younger than most of the men in the islands' shipping business, he was a hard man, as capable of spinning ridiculous yarns as the men whose age rivaled that of the rusted, wind beaten barge. As an act of unspoken etiquette, the men never called bull on the tall tales told on lonely nights spent at sea.

He learned a lot from these men, with hard work being the second most important lesson after maintaining a respectable image.

With the wild dogs, he was a man of silent awe in the presence of their unpracticed elegance. Though he was not above romping with the pack, he much preferred sitting aside and observing the dogs prowl about the forest or listening to them bay late at night. The wild dogs were, in a strange way, his, similar to the way in which the forest, though frequented by islanders, was theirs. He had a deep appreciation of the wild dogs' savage beauty and their acceptance of him. They were a family of sorts, and they had adopted him. In the beginning of his relationship with the dogs, he had thought that he had found them.

In all reality, the dogs had found him and shown him the beauty of their unquestionable acceptance.

In his work, he was aloof and devoid of outward emotion. Friendly advances and small talk were unneeded and unwanted distractions. He enjoyed the backbreaking labor for all its mess and required effort. Nothing pleased him more than a day's work done well. His working self earned him a reputation for being cold and wholly unapproachable. While this reputation kept his days clear of extraneous conversations and diversions, the pointed glares of gossipy women did make him nervous.

In a move to calm his nerves rather than to save face, he got into the practice of giving a good-natured tip of his hat when passing familiar faces, though he never did get into the habit of having unnecessary conversations with his customers.

Sometimes, when he stood on the beach late at night, waiting for the barge to take him to another island, he was a small and insignificant existence under the arc of the starry and infinite sky. The heavenly bodies that extended above him and much farther than his eyes could see were beyond his comprehension. Nights spent on the beach left him feeling challenged and unsettled by the immensity.

This was a fact that, in all his pride, he would never admit to the barge workers.

In her company, he simply loved. She was his equal in spitting, and there were many times that made him wonder at her strength – whether she was stronger than him. She had class and grace that captivated him and she kept him anchored when the sheer endlessness of the cosmos threatened to pull him away. Unknowingly, sweetly, she fed into him his most strongly felt emotions. There was a very special quality in her which allowed him to be a less fragmented version of himself. She was a woman with an unyielding spirit, and for that, he loved her.

He felt no need to pursue her with tactless flirtation; he knew no urgency in the matter. If it had taught him nothing else, working as an animal tradesman taught him patience. He knew that, to love him return, fully and properly, she would need the uncommon ability to love every shade of his person.

By the sweet blessing of the powers that be, she, too, had many sides.

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><p><em>This is a rewrite, one which makes me much happier than the piece I wrote for this same prompt a few years ago. I plan to restart this prompts project sporadically, as college won't allow for frequent updates, but I should be improving my writing due to a professional writing minor I've picked up. This prompt was interesting for me to pursue, because I, in the way that I wrote Vaughn, have many 'sides,' as lots of people do. I <strong>may <strong>have written a bit of myself into Vaughn while keep him in what I imagine his character to be. May have. I'd love opinions, suggestions, critique, or anything you lovely readers may throw at me!_

_Vaughn is definitely one of my favorites when it comes to Harvest Moon characters. He'll probably show up a lot. Fair warning._


	2. Rings

_Claire and Kai_

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><p>Claire was being haunted by rings.<p>

The wooden table, the centerpiece of her – no longer their – house: covered in water rings from countless cups of coffee and tea, juices and milk bottles. She didn't use coasters because she believed in messes and imperfections. He had spent a long time frequenting aged hotels rife with battered furniture and ragged sheets as he pursued an endless summer. He was not shaken by water rings on a table.

Goddess, that table. It was where she had spent each morning – planning the day's work, checking her accounts, making phone calls to the market, and gathering herself for the daunting challenges that always faced her: saving money to reinforce the barns, planting a new season's crops, smashing stones for expansion, and, in the summers, making time to visit Kai on the beach for a snatch of conversation laden with hope. In front of that table, she had bared her heart to him for the first time. Wordlessly, heart filled to the brim, she handed him a feather the color of an autumn sky.

"For real, Claire?" At her nod, he had continued. "I'm always so happy whenever you stop by. In fact, others come by all the time, but none cheer me up like you. What I'm trying to say is…I really love you, Claire."

Ah, what beautiful words they had been to her at the time. As that summer – her fourth in Forget-Me-Not Valley – dwindled down, she no longer made casual conversation with her fiancé – how honey-sweet that word felt on her tongue – on the beach. They chattered gleefully about their upcoming wedding in the heedless manner of two people shamelessly in love. All was well.

After their marriage, when Kai was integrated into Claire's life, the rings on the table began polluting the area in front of the unused chair. It was a small sign of their shared home and their quiet mornings spent at the table, planning and enjoying the simplicity of each other's company. That ringed table harbored memories beyond their engagement. It wore their Starry Nights, their Winter Thanksgivings, and their blizzard day conversations, their worries and their successes. That table told the story of Claire's before and their wedded present.

Though there were rings on both sides of the table, it now told the story of a bitter after. It sagged under the weight of a conversation and an ending and a lonely young woman, head in her arms on its ringed surface.

Her field, fertile, full of barns and crops – her visual bounty – had once housed a line of five pineapple trees, proud and tall, lush with blooms and new leaves come springtime. Claire had spitefully noted that there was a tree for each year of their formerly blissful marriage. In her disgust, she had ruefully clobbered at the trunks of each tree with her axe. It had been a slapdash job, one performed in a desperate grasp for catharsis. The tree stumps sat in their line, all five ringed with their age. Each time Claire went to that section of the field, she was assaulted by the view of the ringed stumps of trees she had planted for Kai.

Originally, she had planted one tree.

"Pineapple's worth a lot," Takakura had told her, nodding in approval. It was during that first spring, when she was struggling with money and spent each day trudging around in premature defeat. His comment made her happy. Money was a necessity and trees were easy. Come summer, she would be reaping the benefits of this tree.

She met Kai the last day of spring. She had been drawn to him with that initial contact, but as they acquainted themselves throughout that summer, "drawn" became a weak word for what she began to feel toward him. After she found out that he loved pineapple, her plan of making good money from the trees was replaced by her plan to garner his attention with the fruit.

When she planted four more trees at summer's end, Takakura had looked at her quizzically. On the day that each tree was felled, exposing those damn rings, he did not question her or her waste of good lumber.

Kai had given his excuses and left her in the midst of a bitterly cold winter. The valley was barren and so were the remnants of their marriage. Sitting at their ringed table, he gave his reasons for the departure from Claire, from four seasons, from the valley.

"I loved you, Claire. I do still love you; don't doubt me. I live for summers, though."

She had been horrified. Her husband, her Kai, her dearly beloved – leaving her to pursue his endless summer.

His departure plunged her into an endless winter that lasted through that bitter winter's conclusion and into the following spring.

She had kept their rings in a decisive moment of self-torment. Weren't wedding rings meant to represent an endlessness? The cyclical nature of love? The rings, misrepresentative and tortuous though they were, sat on her bookshelf. She often considered them and their flat meaning. Forever…ha.

These were the rings that haunted her – the ringed table that acted as the beginning, the centerpiece, and the end of their marriage. The pineapple tree stumps that had fed their affections, given them a common ground, given rise to conversations and knowing. The wedding rings that had once represented their bond. They now represented a shell, a shadow, an echo.

And yet.

And yet, looking out the window, Claire saw a ring of light around the midmorning sun, weak in its early spring splendor. She began wondering. She looked to the weddings rings gathering dust on the bookshelf. She had a few pineapples in storage. She had told herself that they would be shipped soon, but had she believed that? Wasn't she saving them for Kai? Didn't she wish for his return?

Perhaps it was time for her to find Kai once more. Though his leaving had thrust her into an endless winter, he had once been her endless summer. His love had been her warmth, his smile her sun.

She would pursue her endless summer rather than sitting and waiting for it to come as she had in the past. She didn't know what sort of outcome to expect, but she brought the wedding rings and a pineapple along with a proposition to follow summer together during the winters. Takakura, she knew, would support her. He, too, had once been haunted by his own set of rings.

When she proposed her idea to him, her neighbor and mentor, a fortress of strength and will during her lowest moments, spoke one word.

"Go."

Claire set out to find Kai, her heart filled with hope and a pineapple in her rucksack – it was similar to those summers of years past. No matter the end result, the two were about to come full circle – their journey had become its own ring.

She had an inkling that, despite their failings in the past, this ring of their marriage's second coming would be continuous.

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><p><em>I feel that the use of rings in this may be overdone, and at the same time I'm pleased with the outcome. This needs work, I know, because I started out with one idea and halfway through segued into another idea and ended up joining the two somewhere in the middle. For now, I am presenting it as is because I'm really excited about it and I am dying to get some feedback.<em>

_I've been wanting to write about Kai and Claire (from DS Cute, not More Friends of Mineral Town) for years. The idea was different, and I thought it was just fantastic, but it never quite worked out for some reason. I think it's because I always had Kai leaving at the end of summer and Claire waiting around for him to return the next summer. The way I write Claire, she's not a waiter. She will never be written as someone who waits around for a person's return, because, let's face it: I write myself into every character I write about, even if it IS fanfiction.  
><em>

_No promises here, but I might continue their story with some of these prompts. I'm curious about what happens next, but I also like to leave things open-ended. Thoughts?_

_Thanks for reading!_


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